


learn what joy means

by biblionerd07



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: 5+1 Things, Anxiety, Character Study, Coach Jack Zimmermann, Friendship, Gen, M/M, Overdosing, Recovery, Team as Family, learning to love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-20
Updated: 2017-10-20
Packaged: 2019-01-20 07:55:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,067
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12428301
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/biblionerd07/pseuds/biblionerd07
Summary: 5 times Jack thinksI love you, +1 time he says it out loud.





	learn what joy means

**Author's Note:**

> The title comes from Sleeping at Last's "Sorrow", which is a song that makes me cry a lot and a song I should not have considered in conjunction with Jack Zimmermann because then I cried even more. So here, friends. [Listen to the song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bia98J_AWNE) and think about Jack Zimmermann rebuilding himself and cry with me.

_1._

People on the outside find it easy to pinpoint the exact moment the world fell down around Jack’s ears. It was when he took the third pill, or the fourth or fifth. It was when he stopped breathing. It was when he woke up in the hospital and the draft had passed him by. They know, they claim. That’s when it happened, right there.

For Jack, there was no one moment. The world didn’t crash down in an instant; there was a steady collapse for a long time. The world creaked and groaned as it slowly sank lower and lower, but no one else heard it, no one else saw, or at least they all pretended they didn’t. Jack didn’t know what to do about it. Jack was a kid; he thought maybe that was just how the world was, and he was the only one who thought it was a problem. He thought maybe ignoring it was part of growing up.

(Later, looking back on it, Jack will realize he was so young. As an older-than-average senior watching the frogs, noticing Chowder’s braces and Nursey’s still-cracking voice and Dex’s grimace when he drinks coffee, Jack will feel a rush of soft compassion for his younger self. Decades later, when the boy with too-serious eyes that are brown instead of blue tells him, “Papa, I’m not doing the draft next year”, Jack’s heart will stop at how young he is, how young _Jack was_.)

Jack avoids any media about himself, right at first. He doesn’t want to know what they’re saying about him. But he’s not able to avoid all of it, and he sees a lot of blame. At Jack himself, of course—why didn’t he say anything? Why didn’t he tell anyone? Why is this rich, talented kid so broken, when nothing bad has ever happened to him? (That last one might be Jack’s thoughts more than the media’s.) There’s a lot of blame on his coaches, too, for putting too much pressure on him.

Most of the blame, though, is directed at his parents. They pushed him into hockey. He’s living their dream, not his. If they hadn’t sent him off to live with a billet family, they could’ve kept an eye on him, could’ve seen the warning signs. Jack sees his mother’s brow furrow as she absorbs this blow and knows she agrees, blames herself.

Jack hates it. It doesn’t seem fair to blame his parents when they did all they could. Alicia found Jack in the midst of a panic attack at Christmas when he was seventeen and they got him a therapist right away. They only sent him to the Q, to the billet families, because that’s what everyone does. Bob did it when he was Jack’s age, and everyone on Jack’s team was doing it. None of them ended up dead for six seconds. Jack’s the only one who can’t handle it, and it isn’t his parents’ fault.

But it puts up a wall between Jack and his parents. It makes things uncomfortable. His parents wonder if it’s their fault, and Jack doesn’t know how to tell them it isn’t. He wakes up in the hospital and his father is asleep in a chair by the door, watchful, and his mother is on the bed with him, curled protectively around him even though he’s legally an adult and already physically a giant compared to her. When they take him home, his father blocks Jack’s face from the cameras and his mother snaps at the reporters to leave, but then they go inside and retreat to different parts of the house and never seem to find their footing again.

It’s hard to deal with. Jack is at his parents’ house, his childhood home, and he’s supposed to be comfortable and recovering, but he feels awkward and guilty. It’s a process, his therapist keeps telling him. Things will get better.

Jack wakes up one morning and heads down to the kitchen for breakfast and he’s halfway down the stairs when he realizes he didn’t have to give himself a pep talk to do it. That seems like progress. He gets to the kitchen and his parents are there, eating breakfast and doing the crossword puzzle. They’ve done that as long as Jack can remember, longer than he’s been alive. They share the Sunday morning crossword, and they pass a pencil back and forth and argue about answers and tease each other and flirt despite being married for over twenty years. It’s familiar and comfortable.

“Morning,” Alicia says distractedly, shaking her head at whatever Bob’s filling in.

For the outside world, Jack’s parents are always perfect, put-together, media-trained, and smiling. Right now, Bob’s shirt is covered in paint splotches from the time he decided to redecorate his office himself and he hasn’t shaved, stubble growing in dark and thick. Alicia is wearing a pair of bunny slippers Jack bought her for her birthday when he was ten and the part of her hair is uneven and mussed.

Jack suddenly can’t breathe, overwhelmed for a moment. His parents are trying so hard to stay normal, even when nothing is normal anymore. His parents are doing so much for him. His parents have declared a media blackout for the first time in decades, just for Jack.

“Jack?” His mother asks, looking up. She’s on the edge of concern, trying not to smother but making sure to notice. “Are you alright?”

_I love you_ , Jack thinks, but he’s aware that his feelings are a bit much for eight am on a Sunday, are weird for watching his parents do a crossword in their pajamas over croissants and coffee.

“Yeah,” Jack says, and his parents both believe him. He thinks he’s going to be okay.

 

_2._

“I can’t,” Jack says, his voice frantic. His heart is beating too fast. He’s starting to sweat. “I can’t do that.”

Albert regards him calmly. Jack has known Albert for about a decade now, first met him in peewees when Bob brought Jack in to plead his case to play up an age level. Albert’s in charge of all the youth teams in their area. Somehow he seems younger now than he did ten years ago, but Jack thinks that might have more to do with himself than with Albert.

“I think you’d make a great coach, Jack. And you wouldn’t be the head coach, just the assistant.”

“I don’t think I should be around kids,” Jack insists. _I’ll ruin them_.

“It’s only three hours per week,” Albert points out. Jack’s throat feels like it’s closing. He doesn’t want to let Albert down, but Jack knows he cannot do this. No one should ever let him be around kids. He’s not good at it.

“You don’t have to,” Albert says. “But I think you’d be good at it, and I think it’d be good for you. Why don’t you come to the first practice and see how it goes?”

Jack agrees because he feels like he should, and Jack goes to practice, and then suddenly Jack finds himself going to two practices per week and a game every weekend. He doesn’t remember when he agreed to do this, but by the time he realizes he’s in it for real, he’s Coach Z and he’s actually enjoying himself.

And the thing is—these kids don’t know who he is. They’re eleven, young enough that Bad Bob is a name they’ve heard but not someone they really care about. Their favorite hockey players are guys they see on the ice every game, not someone who retired a decade ago. They don’t care how many Cups he won if he did it before they were born. They don’t look at Jack and see the disgraced wonderkid; they see Coach Z, the guy who helps them tie their skates and tape their sticks and fit all their gear into their bags.

It’s a weight off his shoulders. As long as he shows up and is nice to them, they like him. They’re not pretending to be his friends until they get his dad’s autograph and they’re not collecting stories to cash in when he’s in the NHL. They’re looking to him for help when they fall on their asses.

Jack’s never felt that before. It’s incredible.

“Coach Z,” Hayden says mournfully. “My skate’s untied again.”

Hayden is a child, so Jack won’t think of him as a disaster, but he’s a bit frazzled most of the time. He’s gangly and awkward, hardly coordinated enough to stay on his feet on solid ground, let alone ice, and he is constantly losing pieces of gear. He has mismatched gloves because he keeps losing one. In a few years, Jack will meet Derek Nurse as a frog and smile a little to himself and wonder how Hayden’s doing.

“I’ll get it for you,” Jack says, because they figured out pretty early on it’s a lot easier for Jack to just do it for him than for Hayden to take off his gloves and try to do it himself in the middle of practice. He’s getting better, Jack thinks with pride. He’s had the same gloves for three weeks now without losing one. He gets his skates on by himself, even if he can’t tie them tight enough to stay put. Jack has a pair of waxed laces in his bag he’s trying to figure out how to get onto Hayden’s skates without embarrassing Hayden’s mom.

His kids don’t win the championship. They only make the playoffs because it’s peewees and everyone makes the playoffs. They’re not good, truth be told. Jack thinks they’re perfect, and the thought of leaving them to go to a whole different country, to play again, on his own, makes his stomach claw up his throat in panic.

They’re together on the ice one last time. Next year, Jack will be at Samwell, and these kids will be on different teams. Some of them will stay together, but Jamie is moving to Alberta and Alex is aging up. Jack desperately wants to stay. He wants to watch Hayden grow into his limbs and he wants to see Liam’s first hat trick and he wants to make sure Lizzy doesn’t quit because some stupid boy tells her girls can’t play.

“Coach Z!” They’re yelling at him to come play with them. They’re chasing each other around the ice, playing tag and shrieking and falling more than they’re skating.

“Coach Z?” Alice says shyly. “I wanna show you something.” She’s cried at every single game they’ve played, but she never stopped showing up. Jack doesn’t know if it’s normal to find that as inspirational as he does. She bites her lip nervously and watches his face as she pushes off to skate backwards. It’s wobbly and she only makes it about three strides before she stops, but Jack actually whoops out loud.

“Alice!” He raises his arms triumphantly. “You did it!”

She giggles and skates off, forward this time. At the end of a vigorous game of Jack against the entire team, Jack finds himself laughing breathlessly and almost has to sit down when he realizes how much he’s enjoying himself.

He loves hockey. He forgot that, kind of. For a long time, hockey was a necessity, a given, an expectation. He forgot that most of all, hockey used to be his favorite game to play, his favorite thing to do, his reason for bouncing excitedly out of bed every day during the season as a kid. He watches the third line skate together and even complete a shaky drop-pass and he feels oddly choked up.

_I love you_ , he thinks. He doesn’t even know if he means it for the kids or for the ice or just for hockey. He does know his feelings are weird just now, an overreaction. He blinks rapidly to get himself together and laughs when the kids score on his empty net. He gives them all fist-bumps as they leave the locker room to find their parents, their bags bigger than their little bodies.

“Bye, Coach Z!”

“Good luck in college, Coach Z!”

Jack smiles at each kid, and he says each of their names, and he goes home and starts planning for the fall. He’s ready, and he’s going to be okay.

 

_3._

Jack isn’t drunk. He doesn’t get drunk anymore, doesn’t _let_ himself get drunk anymore. It’s not good for him. But it’s the end of his first season at Samwell, and he’s learned he has to take a beer. The seniors won’t stop hounding him unless they look over and see a cup in his hand, so he acquiesces and lets the cup get warm from his sweaty hands. He’s older than the other frogs, and a bit less susceptible to peer pressure because of his age and his name and the heavy weight of his reputation and his anxiety pressing around his shoulders, but he doesn’t like all the attention he draws by not coming to parties, so he makes an appearance and he holds a cup and he tries to talk to people who talk to him.

Shitty, on the other hand, is _drunk_. Shitty is Jack’s roommate, assigned randomly despite his insistence that it was fate bringing them together. Jack was glad to be paired with a hockey player but wasn’t sure they’d become friends. They did, mostly through Shitty’s aggressive persistence. Jack was content to hang out at practice and let that be it, but not Shitty. Even despite all the bonding Shitty foisted upon him, Jack wasn’t sure they were actually friends until about February, at a party like this, when a drunk girl with a mean edge to her words asked Jack loudly if he was really a coke addict.

Before Jack had finished sputtering, Shitty was positioning himself between Jack and the girl and bellowing,

“I don’t do coke, just weed. Why do you ask?”

That’s when Jack had realized they were friends, and he’d resolved to keep up his end of the friendship for Shitty, too. He doesn’t understand why Shitty has to be _naked_ all the time, but Jack does his best to be there for Shitty the way Shitty’s been for him.

So right now, as he sees Shitty staggering away from another keg stand, Jack bites his lip. The seniors on the hockey team aren’t just going to let Shitty drink himself unconscious and abandon him, but Jack can already tell Shitty should stop. For one thing, they share a bathroom, and Jack’s not looking forward to the aftermath of this night on said bathroom.

More than that, though, Jack doesn’t want Shitty to hurt himself, or get to the point of drunkenness where he’s sad and tells Jack more about his family than he means to and has trouble meeting Jack’s eye in the morning. Jack understands that feeling all too well.

“Hey, Shits,” Jack calls, heart hammering as he steps into a crowd to get to Shitty. Everyone’s looking at him and Jack’s cup shivers a little as his hand starts to shake.

“Jacky Z!” Shitty yells happily. “C’mere, fucking beaut. You guys know Jack? He’s the best.”

Jack’s blushing, and he tries to ignore everyone looking at him. “Shitty, I think we should go.”

Someone in the crowd boos and Jack’s breath catches. _It’s okay_ , he tells himself. They’re all drunk. They’re not really booing Jack, just the idea of leaving the party. He’s fine.

Shitty comes right up to Jack’s face and leans on Jack a bit. His eyes are huge and he’s as serious as possible in his state when he says, too loud and too earnest, “You need to leave?”

Jack’s not sure he’s happy with everyone around them considering the reasons Jack would need to leave, but it’s not like he can tell Shitty _he_ needs to leave just now. Instead Jack just nods. “Will you come with me?”

“Fuck, course I will,” Shitty slurs. “I don’t know where my shoes are, though.”

“You’re wearing them,” Jack says.

“Am I? Whoa. I thought I took them off. Fuck, that’s hilarious. I’m wasted.”

“Schwasted,” one of the juniors corrects.

“Totally,” Shitty agrees.

“Okay, Shits, come on,” Jack says. He gets Shitty out the door and down the sagging steps of the Haus.

“Can’t wait to live here next year,” Shitty mumbles into Jack’s neck. Jack’s bigger than Shitty, and he’s older and stronger, but he’s still huffing a puffing a little from supporting most of Shitty’s weight. Shitty talks about how great living in the Haus will be all the way back to their dorm.

“We’ll be with the team _all the time_ ,” Shitty reminds Jack, as if Jack has no reason to be worried about having no breaks from hockey.

“That’s great, Shits,” Jack says idly, unlocking their door and finally depositing Shitty on his bed. He has no idea how Shitty already has his shirt off.

“It’s a big house,” Shitty murmurs. “But it won’t be quiet. Not a bad big house, you know?” Jack has no idea what Shitty’s talking about. “Living there, people want us there. People _like_ us.”

Jack gets a lump in his throat at how heartfelt Shitty sounds. Not just at the thought of people liking Jack—he’s always had a complicated relationship with people liking him. But Shitty sounds so… _longing_. He wants to live in a house where people like him and want him around. Jack’s heard enough about Shitty’s family to know that will be a novelty, even if it sounds simple. It makes Jack mad.

_I love you_ , he thinks suddenly, all the protectiveness and anger at Shitty’s family coming together in a rush. Shitty took one look at awkward, quiet Jack Zimmermann and decided to befriend and protect him. He’s the guy who always nods encouragingly when no one else is listening to someone. He doesn’t deserve anyone treating him badly or making him think they don’t want him around. Shitty’s never asked Jack about his dad or his overdose even once, not even when he’s drunk or high. Shitty is Jack’s friend—Jack’s best friend. The best friend he’s ever had, the first friend who was Jack’s friend just to be his friend, not because he wanted something or had to be.

But Jack can’t tell Shitty that. Jack doesn’t know how to just open his mouth and say that to anyone who isn’t his mom or dad or grandmother. He doesn’t even tell his aunt or uncles he loves them. And he’s still not totally used to speaking so much English all the time. Alicia’s from the States, so it’s not like Jack doesn’t know English, but she’s fluent in French and it’s all around them at home.

Besides, Shitty’s asleep. He’s drooling, and he farts while Jack is still standing there, and somehow the warm feeling in Jack’s chest doesn’t go away. Jack thinks about living with Shitty in the big, old Haus, thinks about spending the next three years making sure Shitty knows people like him and want him around, and he smiles. He pats Shitty’s leg and goes to the bathroom to get ready for bed. They’re going to be okay.

 

_4._

“Do you want to be our team manager?” Jack blurts out. Shitty’s friend blinks at him. Her name is Larissa and Jack just watched her order seven hockey players into setting up two beer pong tables. He knows almost nothing about her except she got the boys to do what she wanted, she’s an art major, and Shitty’s kind of in love with her but won’t admit it.

“Sure,” Larissa says. “Cool.”

Jack doesn’t think much is going to come from it. He didn’t really know the last manager; the guy was their old captain’s twin brother and only showed up to two games but came to every kegster. Jack figures if Larissa does better than that, he’ll have done his job as captain.

Within two weeks, she’s set up a mass email chain, a master schedule of everyone’s classes, and knows Johnson’s entire allergy list. She’s beaten everyone at beer pong and refuses to step foot on the ice unless she’s on Shitty’s back. She color-codes their game schedule and somehow gets the bus driver to show up on time. Jack can’t believe it. No matter what else happens while he’s captain, at least he got this right. He still hasn’t talked to her much, but he’s glad she’ll be here to take care of the team.

 

Jack’s in his bedroom, twirling a pencil. He’s done with his thesis, but he hasn’t done his bibliography yet. He should be working, or he should be reading the email the Falconers just sent him, or he should be watching game tape to get ready for the playoffs. Instead he’s sitting here, risking blinding himself and ruining his NHL career. (Again.)

Jack puts the pencil down after that thought.

“Yo,” Lardo says, crawling on her hands and knees through the bathroom. She was probably smoking in Shitty’s room. Shitty’s in class, but it’s not like that’s ever stopped her before. She’s already started sleeping there, claiming she’s breaking the room in to get ready for next year, and Jack doesn’t know if she and Shitty are _sleeping together_ or just sleeping together.

“Hey,” Jack says. Lardo crawls over and climbs onto his bed. She’s fully clothed, so Jack has no protests to this.

“You started packing already?” Lardo asks, looking at the books Jack boxed up.

“Just the textbooks I’m done with. I’m going to ship them to my parents’ house.”

“Fuck.” Lardo’s flopped back on Jack’s pillows, messing up his bedspread, but Jack’s gotten used to that. It doesn’t bother him anymore. Much. She rolls over and looks at his _Be Better_ poster. “Are you taking that with you?”

Jack looks at it for a minute. When Jack was a freshman, it was a reminder—don’t break down again, don’t prove anyone right. Be better, skate faster, push harder. It reminded him of his dad. But now…Jack doesn’t think he needs it. He thinks his dad never really wanted him to think that way, either.

“I don’t know,” he says.

“You gonna leave it for Chowder?”

“ _No_ ,” Jack’s a little surprised at his own vehemence. All he knows is he cannot stand the thought of Chowder looking at that poster every day and feeling how Jack did. The way his stomach clenched as he remembered how he hadn’t been better that day. The way his throat tightened up and his muscles tensed when he thought about everything he needed to do. His own shortcomings. Chowder doesn’t deserve that.

Lardo’s looking at him with her eyebrows raised. She can’t know everything Jack’s thinking, but he’s pretty sure she’s got at least some of it. And he can hear her response in his head—Chowder doesn’t deserve that, and neither does Jack. He doesn’t need her to voice it aloud to know she feels that way.

“You want it?” Jack asks, surprising them both. It’s not that he wants _Lardo_ to feel what he felt, either. He doesn’t think she will, though. Lardo can look at something like that and scoff at it and not feel like someone’s squeezing her lungs. Jack’s pretty sure, anyway.

“Sure,” Lardo says. “Gonna use it for an art piece.”

Jack huffs. “For what?”

Lardo shrugs, rumpling up Jack’s blankets. “Not sure yet. Something to do with capitalist bullshit making people think they’re not good enough.”

“This might be one time capitalism isn’t to blame,” Jack points out. Lardo laughs, a little startled by his joke. Her stoned laugh is different than her regular laugh. It gets slower, deeper. Jack’s been hearing it for three years and he’s never really thought about how he knows the difference.

“Fuck capitalism anyway, though, bro, like for real.”

Jack chuckles, because Lardo is pretty much always ready to denounce capitalism but particularly when she’s high. She and Shitty can get going for a while once they get started, and it scares the frogs a lot of times.

“I’m Canadian,” Jack reminds her. “You don’t have to explain the evils of capitalism to me.”

“Fuck, yeah, Canada,” Lardo mumbles. “Your pillows, bro. So nice. Feel good.”

Jack snorts. He does have a really high thread-count on his sheets and pillowcases. He’s always very conscious of how money sets him apart from his teammates, because even the richest aren’t rich like Jack’s family is rich, but he’s not willing to compromise on thread-count. It must feel especially nice to Lardo while high and after she probably just rolled off Shitty’s bed. Shitty has four pillows and one pillowcase, which he made out of an old Samwell Hockey t-shirt that a bird pooped on.

Lardo’s rolling her head around, rubbing it against Jack’s pillows and matting her hair, and he actually laughs out loud. He doesn’t do that a lot, but it’s usually his teammates getting him to do it. _I love you_ , he thinks, a rush of affection making his chest and stomach warm. It’s going to be hard leaving Samwell, but it’s going to be really hard leaving Lardo.

He doesn’t say it. Lardo’s high, and though she would return the sentiment with interest, Jack thinks something heartfelt like that should be shared sober. Besides, she doesn’t really need Jack to say it. They’ve always understood each other quietly. She knows he loves her. He knows she loves him.

“’m gonna take a nap,” Lardo says, wriggling around on his bed. Jack helps Lardo get under the covers and puts her phone on his bedside table for safe keeping. He snaps a picture of her, and it’s good. He’ll probably frame it.

They’re going to stay friends when Jack leaves. He’s afraid of losing touch with his teammates, but he knows no amount of time passing will break the easy camaraderie he has with Lardo. He smiles at her sleeping form on his bed, and then he goes back to his homework. It won’t be easy to leave her, but he’s going to be okay.

 

_5._

They play their hearts out. They play fucking good hockey. They impress the hell out of everyone, including themselves.

They don’t win.

It’s a hard pill to swallow. Jack thinks they deserve this, after how much they’ve grown as a team. Every person on their team has worked for this, has bled and sweated and given their all. Every person on their team showed up, day after day, no matter how tightly wound Jack got and how high the stakes piled. They pulled together and they fought for this and they should have won.

And part of him, a part he wants to hide because it sounds arrogant, maybe, and definitely selfish, thinks _he_ deserves this. He’s worked so hard. He came here after his life fell apart and he kept going. He’s become a better hockey player, a better captain, a better _teammate_. He should have gotten that championship, even if he never gets the other one.

But. They don’t win.

It’s hard not to blame himself. He only scored twice. He took a hooking penalty in the third. He didn’t pass to Shitty on that play in the first. That might’ve changed things. It all could’ve gone differently.

He’s working on it. He’s learning to be kinder to himself.

They all blame themselves, really. They’re high-level athletes; it happens. Jack has a talk with Chowder about it, because he’s still learning to be kinder to himself but it’s easy, natural, to make sure Chowder is being kind to himself. Jack has been playing hockey for a very long time, and he knows that goalies shoulder a lot of blame with a loss. Chowder deserves better than that, and Jack will do his damnedest to make sure he gets it.

But they don’t win. And the season is over. And everything suddenly feels so rushed. The year is ending. Their time together is ending. It’s over, technically, but at least there’s still the Haus, the gathering point, kegsters. Everything is slipping away and Jack can’t stop it and he has to sit down on his bed for a minute and bury his face in a pillow and hold his breath and try not to scream.

After they don’t win, none of them are quite sure what to do with themselves. Jack has training camp in a few months, and then he’ll keep playing. The underclassmen have next year. But for Shitty and the rest of the seniors, hockey is over. They might play in beer leagues, but they’re done playing hockey every day.

Jack can’t imagine that. He doesn’t let himself. No hockey. He can’t fathom it. It crushes his lungs to even consider the words. He lets Shitty cuddle him more after they don’t win, even initiates it a time or two. How is Shitty still breathing? Jack can’t figure it out.

The thing is, though, none of them are great at going without hockey. They never have been. That’s how they all got here. And so they don’t win, but they still find themselves at Faber, lacing up their skates and trash-talking each other like always. They shoot pucks at Chowder and shove each other around the ice.

Jack looks around at one point, looks at Ransom and Holster racing with Bittle and Lardo on their backs, looks at Nursey skating gracefully despite the fact that he will step off the ice and probably twist an ankle, looks at Dex crowding Shitty against the boards while they’re both laughing, and his heart swells.

 _I love you_ , he thinks, fierce and painful. This team has become everything to him. This team has centered him, grounded him, made him who he is. This team is his family. He can’t tell them this, not in so many words. Jack’s never been one for big speeches, unless it’s in the locker room between periods and he can scream about passes and neutral zone turnovers and watching the point. He’s been working on being more honest and open, but he’s not ready to break down in tears on the ice in front of his team.

So he loves them all, quietly, and he smiles and he laughs and he joins Dex in checking Shitty and as soon as Ransom puts Bittle down Jack checks him, too, and Bittle shrieks at him but keeps skating, faster than Jack can keep up. They play on the ice, and they have fun together, maybe for the last time. Jack loves them all so much it chokes him.

They don’t win. But they’re going to be okay.

 

_+1_

“Jack, Tater’s on his way over,” Bitty calls from the kitchen. Jack comes down the hallway and finds Bitty in the kitchen, as always. He’s pulling out his pie tins.

“You do not have to make him pie every time he comes over,” Jack reminds him. “You probably _shouldn’t_ make him pie every time he comes over. He’s going to feel it all when we start training camp.”

“He asked for pie, he gets pie,” Bitty says with a shrug. “I wanted to use up those blueberries anyway.”

Jack leans against Bitty’s back while Bitty starts the pie. Having Bitty here all summer has been bittersweet. Mostly sweet; the only bitter is knowing Bitty has to go back to school in two weeks. The apartment is going to feel extra empty without him. Jack’s not sure how he’s going to handle it. Skype and phone calls and notes and sandwiches are important and mean a lot, but he’s been spoiled all summer. There’s nothing like closing his eyes to Bitty’s freckled face every night and waking up to warm kisses every morning.

Bitty huffs. “You’re crushing me,” he says, but he makes no move to get away and Jack knows he’s just protesting to be chirpy.

“That’s because you keep making pie,” Jack chirps back, nuzzling his nose along the outside of Bitty’s ear. Bitty laughs at him and tips his head a little so Jack can keep going.

“Excusez moi,” Bitty says in that horrible accent a minute later. “Vous, uh…uh…mesurez sucre, s’il vous plaît.”

Jack can’t help himself; he laughs so hard he has to hold onto the counter. Bitty puts his hands on his hips and does that thing where he’s glaring but his eyes are laughing. It’s one of Jack’s favorite expressions.

“Okay, I see how it is. You’re just going to laugh at me and _not help me at all_.”

“Désolé,” Jack says, still grinning. “Did you catch that?” He peels himself off Bitty’s back and reaches for the sugar.

“Enough cheek out of you, Jack Zimmermann.” Bitty brandishes a wooden spoon at him in warning. Jack salutes him with the measuring cup.

“Oui, monsieur.”

“I’m going to make Tater speak Russian at you when he gets here.”

“Still wouldn’t help you with French _or_ Russian,” Jack points out. “At least in Montreal there’s English everywhere. What are you going to do when we go to Paris?”

“When we go to Paris?” Bitty echoes, poking at the butter to see if it’s soft enough to cream yet. “Didn’t know we were going to Paris.”

“Well, someday,” Jack says with a shrug. “You’d love to go to Paris. Of course we have to go.”

Bitty’s hands still over the butter and he smiles at Jack softly. “Oh,” he says. “Well. Okay, then.”

Jack loves putting that smile on Bitty’s face. He makes himself focus on the task at hand. “How much sugar?” He asks. “Like half the bag?”

Bitty snorts. “Stop that. I’m not _that_ bad.”

“I don’t know, I heard the nutrition staff talking about you like you’re public enemy number one by the end of playoffs.”

Bitty gasps. “I made Barbara _flaxseed granola_ ,” he says, betrayed. “And I followed the plan they gave me during the season! Summer doesn’t count; I get to fatten you up over the summer.”

Jack’s laughing again. They slip into comfortable silence, measuring and mixing. It’s familiar. The summer feels like it’s gone by way too fast, but this is something they’ve been doing together for a long time, all the way back in the Haus before Jack even realized his own feelings.

Bitty’s humming while he mashes the blueberries and Jack washes out the measuring cups they’re done using. The curtains on the kitchen window have little strawberries on them because Bitty said both pies and hockey sticks were too on-the-nose. Jack turns around in time to see Bitty stick a finger in the bowl to check the consistency; he makes a face and goes back to stirring, popping his finger in his mouth and licking off the blueberry. He’s wearing an old Samwell shirt of Jack’s that’s hanging down around his collarbone and before Tater gets here he’ll change into “real clothes” that he’ll pick in two minutes but will look like they came straight from a magazine. There’s chicken marinating in the fridge and the TV is paused from their Breaking Bad marathon because Bitty never watched it when it first came out.

Jack feels a smile split his face. They have a life, right here. They built this together. He knew all along they were doing it, facilitated it, even, but something about stopping and looking around and realizing all their little steps have added up to this domesticity is hitting him hard.

“Jack?” Bitty asks. He looks at Jack. “You alright, sweetpea?”

“I love you,” Jack says. It’s far from the first time he’s said it. It’s probably not even the five hundredth time he’s said it. Bitty looks a little confused, because they’re just standing in the kitchen making pie, but he smiles and says,

“Great, I love you, too.”

Jack’s heart isn’t pounding. His breath isn’t ragged. Jack’s chest and his stomach are warm and still as he listens to Bitty hum and watches the flex of his forearms as he stirs. Jack’s been working hard at taking care of himself, at listening to his body’s cues, at appreciating the moments. Jack is happy, and Jack is in love, and Jack is at peace.

Most of all, Jack knows this: he is okay.


End file.
